Blungie is made by Emir Çınar, an independent developer based in Türkiye. Under the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Emir Çınar is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Emir Çınar.
We don’t publish a street address. For anything in this policy, including requests about your data, please email us: Blungieapp@gmail.com. If you would rather apply in writing by post, email us and we will send you a postal address for your application.
This policy covers three services. They work differently, so we describe each one separately:
- The Blungie app for Android (package name
com.blungie.app). Most of this policy is about this app. - English Ecosystem: Learn A1-B1 for Android (package name
com.nextstage.next_stage_english), our earlier app. It was previously called Next Stage English and, for a time, was also published under the Blungie name. See Our earlier app: English Ecosystem. - This website, blungie.com. See This website.
If you use both apps, each section applies to the app it describes.
In short: what the app needs to teach you words and keep your progress in sync: your settings, the words you study and how your reviews go. Signing in is optional.
| Type of data | What it includes | When |
|---|---|---|
| Account | A random user ID, created automatically the first time you open the app (a guest account). If you create an account: your email address and password. If you continue with Google: the email address, name and profile photo link that Google shares with Firebase Authentication. | Guest ID: always. Email or Google: only if you choose to sign in. |
| Profile and settings | The name you’d like us to call you (optional, up to 60 characters), your native language, English level, interests, daily goal for new words, reminder setting and time, time zone, and preferences such as auto-play audio, sound effects and reduced motion. We also keep simple counters, such as how many new words you started today. | When you set up the app or change your settings. |
| Learning activity | For each word you meet: whether you added, saved, hid or paused it; your place on the memory ladder and when the word is due again; your review answers and results, including whether you used a hint; how long a card stayed on screen; which words you met, reviewed and got right on each day; and your collections (their names and words). | As you use the app. |
| Problem reports | When you use “Report a problem” on a word: the word, your app language, your message (up to 1,000 characters), your user ID and the date. | Only when you send a report. |
| Reminder record | The date and time of your last review reminder, so that you get at most one review reminder a day. | Just before a review reminder is shown. |
| Word search | The words you type into word search are sent to our database to find matching words. We don’t store them. | Only while you search. |
| Technical data | When the app connects to our servers, Google Firebase processes the information needed to handle the request, such as your IP address, app and device details sent with the request, and timestamps. Google’s Firebase libraries in the app also attach identifiers to these requests: a Firebase installation ID and an app instance token. We don’t use them to send notifications, to track you or for ads. In a few cases, for example when an account is deleted, our server logs also contain your user ID. | Each time the app connects. |
Your password is handled by Firebase Authentication and stored only in hashed form. We never see it. Firebase also sends verification and password-reset emails for us. If you sign in with Google, the app shows your Google name on the account screen but doesn’t save it in our database.
We don’t ask for your age, gender, phone number or address.
How we collect it. We collect this data electronically: from what you enter in the app, automatically as you use it, from Google if you choose to continue with Google, and from the emails you send us.
What you have to provide. No law requires you to give us any of this data. The app needs a user ID and your learning activity to work at all. Your email address is needed only if you want to sign in with email, and your name and interests are optional. If you leave out something optional, you can still use the app.
- No location, contacts, photos or files, camera or microphone. The app itself asks for internet access, network status, notifications and vibration. Google libraries in the app add standard permissions so reminders survive a restart (wake lock, run at startup) and for Google sign-in (biometric prompt, Google services configuration). None of them gives access to location, contacts, photos, files, camera or microphone.
- No advertising ID and no ads.
- No analytics, tracking or crash-reporting tools.
- No payments: the current version has no in-app purchases or subscriptions.
- No uploads: word pictures and audio come from our servers to you. You never upload files.
We don’t sell your personal data, and we don’t share it with advertisers.
We use your data only for the purposes below. Article 5 of the KVKK and Article 6 of the GDPR require a legal basis for each purpose, so we list it next to each one.
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Create and run your account, keep your progress in sync across devices, and show your words, reviews, streak and statistics. | Necessary to provide the service you asked for (performance of a contract: KVKK Art. 5(2)(c); GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)). |
| Plan your reviews: the app works out when each word comes back, based on your answers. | Performance of a contract (KVKK Art. 5(2)(c); GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)). |
| Look into problem reports and fix mistakes in translations, pictures and audio. | Our legitimate interest in offering accurate content (KVKK Art. 5(2)(f); GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). |
| Keep the service secure and working: prevent misuse, find errors and stop deleted data from coming back. | Legitimate interests (KVKK Art. 5(2)(f); GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). |
| Show review reminders and the word of the day at the times you choose. | Performance of a contract: reminders are a feature you turn on, and you can turn them off at any time in the app or in Android’s notification settings (KVKK Art. 5(2)(c); GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)). |
| Answer your messages and requests. | Legitimate interests, and a legal obligation for requests about your data (KVKK Art. 5(2)(ç) and (f); GDPR Art. 6(1)(c) and (f)). |
| Comply with the law and deal with legal claims. | Legal obligation, and establishing, exercising or defending a right (KVKK Art. 5(2)(ç) and (e); GDPR Art. 6(1)(c) and (f)). |
Automated decisions. The app decides automatically when a word comes back for review, based on your answers. This only shapes your study plan; it has no legal or similarly significant effect on you. We don’t use your data for advertising or to build marketing profiles.
To run smoothly and keep working through short connection drops, the app keeps some data on your phone:
- your settings, tutorial progress, best streak and word-of-the-day settings;
- recently shown cards, your review list and short-term statistics;
- actions you made while offline, which are sent when you’re back online;
- downloaded pictures and audio (the audio cache is limited to 40 MB).
This data stays on your device. Android backup is turned off for the app, so it isn’t copied to your Google backup. When you sign out or switch accounts, the app clears the previous account’s learning data and pending actions from the phone; device settings such as vibration and the word-of-the-day time stay. Uninstalling the app removes everything.
Notifications are local. Review reminders and the word of the day are scheduled on your phone. We don’t send push notifications from a server. You get at most two notifications a day, none between 22:00 and 09:30, and their content is hidden on the lock screen. You can turn them off at any time in the app’s settings or in Android’s notification settings.
We don’t sell your personal data, and we don’t share it with advertisers or data brokers. To run Blungie, we use a small number of service providers, all of them Google services. Except for our email inbox, they process data on our behalf under their data processing terms (“data processors”):
| Provider | Service | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Firebase) | Firebase Authentication | Guest, email and Google sign-in; verification and password-reset emails. |
| Google (Firebase) | Cloud Firestore | Stores your profile, progress, collections and problem reports. |
| Google (Firebase) | Cloud Functions (us-central1, USA) | Runs our server logic: saving your actions, planning reviews, exporting and deleting data. |
| Google (Firebase) | Cloud Storage | Delivers word pictures and audio. It holds no user files. |
| Google (Firebase) | Firebase Hosting | Serves this website and the preview page for shared collections. |
| Gmail | Our email inbox: receives and stores the emails you send us. It is a regular Gmail account, so Google handles these emails under its own privacy policy. |
About AI tools. We create word artwork, voices and translation drafts with OpenAI’s tools. Only learning content goes to OpenAI: words, definitions, example sentences and picture descriptions. No user data is sent to OpenAI, and nothing you do in the app is used to generate content. Translations are checked in an AI-assisted review before they are published; they are not certified by native speakers.
We may also disclose data when the law requires it, for example to comply with a court order or a valid request from a public authority, and only as much as is required.
When you share a collection, the app creates a link that contains the collection’s name and the IDs of its words in the web address itself. We don’t store shared links on our servers. Anyone who has the link can see the collection’s name and words, so please don’t put anything private in a collection name.
If someone opens the link without the app, a preview page served by Firebase Hosting shows the words. That page uses Google Fonts, so Google receives the visitor’s IP address when the fonts load. The page has no analytics.
Our service providers run on Google’s global infrastructure. Our server functions run in the United States (us-central1), and your data may be stored and processed in the United States and in other countries where Google operates. This means your data is transferred abroad from Türkiye and, if you live there, from the European Economic Area.
For these transfers we rely on the appropriate safeguards in Google’s data processing terms: for transfers from Türkiye, the standard contract under Article 9 of the KVKK; for transfers from the EEA, the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses under Chapter V of the GDPR. You can ask us for a copy of these safeguards or more information about them.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, learning activity and collections | Until you delete your account. If you delete it in the app, they are deleted right away. |
| Your sign-in (email or Google link) | Deleted together with your account. If you also use the same sign-in in another app of ours that runs on the same infrastructure, the sign-in itself stays so that app keeps working, but all of your Blungie data is still deleted. |
| Problem reports | Until you delete your account at the latest. We may delete them earlier once they have been handled. |
| Deletion record (your user ID and the time of deletion) | Kept after deletion, currently with no fixed end date, because a device that was signed in before the deletion could otherwise sync deleted data back. It contains nothing else: no name, email address or learning data. |
| Server logs | Deleted automatically after 30 days (Google Cloud’s standard log retention). Google keeps its own technical logs for Firebase Hosting for a limited period under its own rules. |
| Emails you send us | As long as needed to handle your request and any follow-up. We keep a record of data-protection requests for as long as we need to show that we handled them as the law requires. |
| Data on your device | Until you sign out, clear the app’s data or uninstall the app. |
Guest accounts. A guest account belongs to the app on one phone. If you sign out of a guest account, or sign in to an existing account while you are a guest, the guest’s learning data can no longer be reached from the app. Because no email address is linked to it, we can’t find it on request. If you want it deleted, delete the guest account in the app before you leave it. Guest data stays on our servers until you delete it in the app (Profile → Account & privacy → Delete my account). We don’t delete inactive guest accounts automatically, and data of guest accounts that can no longer be reached isn’t used for anything. If we ever introduce automatic removal of long-inactive guest data, we will add the period to this policy first.
- Data travels encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) between the app and our servers, and Google encrypts it when it is stored.
- Access rules let you read only your own data. All changes go through our server functions; the app can’t write to the database directly.
- Access to our administration tools is limited and protected by sign-in.
- Deleting an account in the app requires a recent sign-in, so nobody can delete your account with an old session.
- Android backup is turned off for the app.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will inform you and the authorities as the law requires. Under the KVKK, for example, the Personal Data Protection Board is notified within 72 hours.
Wherever you live, you can:
- Access your data. The quickest way is Profile → Account & privacy → Export my data. The app saves a file with your profile, progress, collections and activity. For a full copy of everything we hold about you, email us.
- Correct it: change your language, level and other settings in the app, or ask us.
- Delete it, in the app or by email. See Delete your account.
- Take it with you (portability): the export is a machine-readable JSON file.
- Restrict or object to processing that is based on our legitimate interests.
- Withdraw your consent wherever we rely on it, for example for personalized ads in our earlier app. This doesn’t affect anything that happened before. You can also turn off notifications at any time.
Your rights under KVKK Article 11
If the KVKK applies to you, you have the right to:
- learn whether your personal data is processed;
- if it is, request information about the processing;
- learn the purpose of the processing and whether your data is used for that purpose;
- know the third parties in Türkiye or abroad to whom your data is transferred;
- ask for incomplete or inaccurate data to be corrected;
- ask for your data to be deleted or destroyed under the conditions in Article 7 of the KVKK;
- ask that any correction, deletion or destruction be communicated to the third parties your data was transferred to;
- object to a result against you that arises solely from the automated analysis of your data;
- claim compensation if you suffer damage because your data was processed unlawfully.
How to make a request
Email Blungieapp@gmail.com from the address linked to your account (if you have one) and tell us what you would like. We may ask for more information to confirm that the request comes from you. We answer free of charge, as soon as possible and within 30 days of receiving your request at the latest. You can also apply in the other ways the KVKK application rules allow, for example in writing by post; email us for the postal address.
Complaints
If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Personal Data Protection Board (Kişisel Verileri Koruma Kurulu) in Türkiye: kvkk.gov.tr. Under Article 14 of the KVKK, you first apply to us. You can then complain within 30 days of learning our answer, and in any case within 60 days of your application. If you live in the EU or the EEA, you can also complain to the data protection authority in your country.
This section covers English Ecosystem: Learn A1-B1, our earlier Android app on Google Play. It was previously called Next Stage English and, for a time, was also published under the Blungie name. It is a separate app from the new Blungie app and works differently: it has games, social features and a paid subscription, and its free version may show ads.
What it collects
- Account: you sign in with your Google account through Firebase Authentication, which receives your email address and basic Google profile.
- Profile: your username or display name, language preferences and English level.
- Learning and game data: game results, vocabulary progress, daily statistics and streak history.
- Social features: leaderboards, friends, tournaments and random matches. In these features, other players can see your display name and scores.
- Crash reports: Firebase Crashlytics collects crash and performance information, such as your device model, Android version and what the app was doing when a problem happened.
- Subscriptions: if you buy Blungie Pro, Google Play Billing handles the payment. We receive your subscription status and purchase details such as the plan and order number. We never see your card details.
- Pronunciation for Pro users: generated with Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, which receives the text to be read aloud.
- Ads: users without Pro may see ads served by Google AdMob. To show, measure and, where allowed, personalize ads, AdMob may process device identifiers such as your advertising ID, your IP address and information about the ads you see and tap. Google explains how it uses data from apps that use its services here: https://
policies . You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalized ads, in your Android settings. Blungie Pro removes ads..google .com/ technologies/ partner-sites
Purposes and legal bases
We use this data to run the app and its social features, sync your progress and process subscriptions (performance of a contract); to keep the app stable and secure with crash reports (legitimate interests); and to show ads to users without Pro (our legitimate interest in funding the free version, or your consent where the law requires consent for personalized ads).
Service providers and transfers
Google processes data for us as a data processor through Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Firebase Crashlytics and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech. For payments (Google Play Billing) and ads (Google AdMob), Google also uses data for its own purposes under its own terms and privacy policy. Data may be processed in the United States and in other countries where Google operates; the safeguards described in International transfers apply.
Retention and deletion
We keep your data while your account is open. To delete your account, email us (see deleting your English Ecosystem account). We delete it within 30 days of receiving your request. Billing records may be kept for up to 7 years where tax or commercial law requires it. Deleting your account doesn’t cancel a Google Play subscription; cancel it in Google Play. You can also ask us by email for a copy of your data.
- blungie.com uses no cookies, no analytics and no ads, and it loads nothing from other websites. Even the fonts are hosted on our own server.
- It keeps one entry in your browser’s local storage:
blungie-lang, with the code of your language (for example,tr). It is saved when you choose a language, when you open a link that asks for a specific language, or when the site takes you to your browser’s language on your first visit. It never leaves your device. Details: Cookies and storage. - The site is hosted on Google Firebase Hosting, which processes technical logs (your IP address, browser user agent, the address you requested and the time) to deliver the pages and keep the service secure. Our legal basis is legitimate interests.
- The contact form on the Help page doesn’t send anything to us by itself: it opens your own email app with your message filled in, and you decide whether to send it.
- If you email us, we use your email address and message to reply to you.
Blungie is meant for people aged 13 and over and is not directed at children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 is using Blungie, please write to us and we will delete the account and its data as soon as we can identify it. A guest account can be deleted right away in the app. If the law in your country sets a higher age for using online services without a parent’s permission, please use Blungie only with that permission.
We update this policy when our apps or the law change. The date at the top of this page shows the current version. If we make a significant change, we will announce it in advance on this website and, where possible, in the app. Where the law requires it, we will ask for your consent.
Data controller: Emir Çınar, independent developer based in Türkiye
Email: Blungieapp@gmail.com
If you are writing about your account, please use the email address linked to it. It helps us confirm that the request comes from you.